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How do I eliminate varnish odor.

A couple of years ago I built a blanket chest for the foot of our bed. It turned out great except for the varnish smell in the inside of the chest that will not go away. My wife won't put anything in the chest because of the smell. I used a poly varnish. I have left the lid open for several weeks and I thought that the smell was gone, but it came back after closing the chest.

Sounds like an oil base varnish. Anything oil base will have residual odor...and there is not a whole lot you can do about it. You could, however do the following ideas:
- strip it off and re-seal with a water base varnish or lacquer(lacquer will linger for a little bit..but will go away). Or you could seal with shellac.

-You could strip the varnish off and line the inside with cedar..and leave that unfinshed.

It is my understanding(and someone please correct me if I am in error here) that you can not do away with the oil smell by top coating right over the oil base varnish(shellac or water base over top the existing oil blend).

About the easiest way to get rid of it - or at least minimize it - would be to scuff sand it, then apply a couple coats of shellac over it to seal the odor in. The shellac's odor will dissipate in a few days, as the alcohol evaporates completely.

2)There is uncured oil in the wood. Many people make the mistake of thinking a coat of linseed oil under the varnish helps things.

Allow more time for the varnish to cure. If it still doesn't, trip it and the oil off the wood, let the wood dry thoroughtly, and start over.

3) The wood is an oily wood such as teak, rosewood, cocobolo, or ebony. The oils in thses woods retard the curing of varnish

Allow more time for the varnish to cure. If it doesn't, strip the varnish off the wood and wash the wood with a non-oily solvent such as naphtha, acetone, or lacquer thinner before reapplying the varnish.